Welcome to another set of impressions for the new anime season, TAY! I'm trying something a little bit different this time, at the end of each impression I'll give a little verdict about the status of the show. Definite Watch!, Watch For Now, On the verge of dropping, and Drop it! Let me know what you guys think, does that work or does it need more tweaking?

Nobunaga The Fool: This is one different series, the show has decided to mix characters from a number of different eastern and western histories and mythologies. For example, Leonardo Da Vinci is a scientist for King Arthur with Jeanne D'Arc for an assistant. It's weird, but entertaining. I hope though that the show does not get trapped by the expectations from these characters and creates it's own identity. It does feel confused in tone at times, being both historical and mech driven.

Verdict: Watch For Now

Recently, My Sister Is Unusual: This is definitely one genre (incest romance comedies) that I'm not a fan of. I'm watching it due to journalistic integrity and I can say now that I probably won't be continuing with this one. It is about a boy whose father has remarried and now has a stepsister living with him. To make matters worse, the parents are off to India the day after they move in, because of course they are. Then the stepsister becomes possessed by a horny ghost, who straps her in a chastity belt. What? It spends a lot of time in the toilet, and I'm done.

Verdict: Drop it!

Buddy Complex: I'm slightly underwhelmed with this one to be honest. It's about a young guy Aoba Watase, who is supposedly someone important in the future, important enough for someone in a mech to travel back and try to kill him. Luckily a pretty girl, also from the future, is there with another mech to save him. It should be exciting, but I couldn't help but feel it was a bizarre mix between gundam and terminator. It felt very safe and, I don't know, cliche? Though I'm not sure that's quite right. It's not a boring show or bad per se, but it's not very good either. We'll see if it gets any better from here on out, but I'm not exactly expecting much.

Verdict: On the verge of dropping

Space Dandy: Alrighty, here we go, I can see this being one of the more polarizing anime of the season. It's about a man Dandy, Space, Dandy who travels the galaxy looking for new unregistered aliens with his robot QT, and alien friend Meow. Now that sentence makes it seem like a pretty straightforward show, but in actuality it's like watching a rainbow colored lava lamp explode over a retro sci-fi show. It's perverse, self aware, and totally bonkers, but for some reason I really felt myself enjoying the weird ride. It's good for a chuckle even if the humor is a bit low brow. It's from the creator of one of the best anime of all time, Cowboy Bebop, so I'm expecting good things.

Verdict: Watch For Now

Noragami: Ok, so, Noragami had me completely enthralled for the whole episode. I really dug the animation style and unique designs for the phantoms. The production value was quite high and I'm thinking that this one may be a contender for my favorite of the season. Yato is a minor god that is trying to improve his station in the world, and Hiyori is a girl who inadvertently gets mixed up with him and the world of phantoms. It manages to balance humor and serious tones pretty deftly, and while it's definitely more light hearted, I get the feeling that it's not always going to be that way. It reminds me of Bakemonogatari, if a little more shonen-esque. I'll reserve further gushing/adoration until the show can prove itself, but... damn.

Verdict: Definite Watch!

Tonari no Seki-Kun: Each episode here is a short, and manageable seven and a half minutes, and it's about a girl Youki who sits next to Seki-kun, a who excels at wasting time, with increasingly elaborate distractions. Its humor is charming as each new distraction is surprising and exasperating to Youki, who is trying to pay attention in class. I highly suggest giving this one the time of day, not to mention it has an extremely catchy ending song.

Verdict: Definite Watch!

Witch Craft Works: This was a goofy, entertaining twist on a pretty well established formula. Boy is normal if not exceedingly average. Boy notices girl. Girl turns out to be magical guardian made of fire hell bent on protecting him from evil bunny robots. Wait what? It's nice to see some gender role reversal here as Kagari is clearly the strong dominant character here. She's also the source of some of the show's laughs, as her deadpan nature sets up some good gags. It's not all pleasant though, the villains make no sense, and we have no idea why Takamiya is important yet. It's fun, but not spectacular, not yet anyway.

Verdict: Watch For Now

The Pilot's Love Song: I wasn't quite sure how I felt about the show, at first anyway. Simply it's about a boy and his sister heading out on an expedition of discovery. It seemed interesting enough to start with, there were hints and flashes at a darker tone hiding behind all that blue sky. But for the most part I wasn't impressed. That all changed pretty much instantly as soon as they introduced Claire. She's adorable, and the bike ride through the clouds is one of those scenes I'm not soon to forget. It's on a slow start, but hopefully can build on an interesting character introduction and some of the things hinted at. I'm not sure I'd put this at the top of my list, but it's certainly on the radar now.

Verdict: Watch For Now

Super Sonico The Animation: I can't believe I just watched that. Even I have a cuteness limit. I'll be dropping this one immediately, there wasn't enough humor to match the saccharine sweetness, it was too much for me to bear. It didn't even really introduce anything resembling a conflict or driving plot, and instead just followed Sonico on her daily routine. Unless you have a major sweet tooth or really really really like moe stuff, stay far far away from this one.

Verdict: Drop it!

These are just my thoughts on the matter, but keep an eye out for a roundtable of opinions on these and other shows on B-ten.com in the coming days!